Documents before the committee included Wellington Water's draft statement of intent for 2020-23, which admitted the organisation was "almost 100 per cent reactive" in its work.
This was put down to a recent increase in service requests, increased costs to do that work, and tight budgets.
"This is not acceptable, so we're working with councils on options to reduce the reactive nature of our work and do more planned work", the document said.
Wellington Water chief executive Colin Crampton told the Herald the organisation wanted to reset the balance in the way it operates by being more proactive.
"Trying to find those issues before they fail, or try and resolve those issues that result in poor quality, rather than just reacting to things going wrong all the time. That's not a good way to work", he said.
Wellington Water has pitched the idea of "roving crews" to councils, which would endeavour to find leaking wastewater pipes and identify cross-connections.
Porirua City Council has already signed up by dedicating $250,000 for a crew in its draft Annual Plan.
In a company update report, Wellington Water said it was still a "long way off" from meeting performance targets for Wellington City Council.
The organisation has improved on attendance to urgent callouts but still has a large backlog in non-urgent callouts.
In its most recent performance measure reporting, the organisation was taking almost three weeks to attend leaky pipe callouts in Wellington City when it should be taking less than two days.
In the company update report, Wellington Water said it told councils the organisation was unable to meet the targeted level of service with its current budget.
Crampton said the organisation also needed more time to allow its new delivery model to bed in.
In July Wellington Water transitioned from City Care to a partnership with Fulton Hogan for maintenance across the region.
Wellington Water also acknowledged the organisation had recently experienced significant network "emergencies".
Contingency plans would undergo a "complete review" and Wellington Water would work with councils to bring changes into effect.
By the end of this month Wellington Water would have prepared reports for councils across the region on the state of their infrastructure and what investment was needed.
Hutt and Porirua city councils have already been briefed on their reports.
In Porirua, $1.8 billion needed to be spent on the city's water infrastructure over the next 30 years.
Mayor Anita Baker said the council hadn't forecast to spend even $1b, let alone $1.8b.
In Hutt City, the council was told it needed to come up with $240m of capital expenditure over the next 10 years, that's on top of the current budget of $269m.
Mayor Campbell Barry said the community would have to be consulted on debt, rates, and council's current spending to determine priorities.
"But I think there is an understanding, an expectation that this is a basic function of council and we can't afford to get this wrong", he said.
